Friday, February 16, 2007

Firmilian, a "Spasmodic" Tragedy: Scene X (cont.)

by T. Percy Jones (W. E. Aytoun), 1854

Enter SANCHO, a Costermonger, singing.

Down in the garden behind the wall, Merrily grows the bright-green leek;The old sow grunts as the acorns fall, The winds blow heavy, the little pigs squeak.One for the litter, and three for the teat—Hark to their music, Juanna my sweet!

APOLLODORUS.

Now, heaven be thanked! here is a genuine bard,A creature of high impulse, one unsoiledBy coarse conventionalities of rule.He labors not to sing, for his bright thoughtsResolve themselves at once into a strainWithout the aid of balanced artifice.All hail, great poet!

SANCHO.

Save you, my merry master! Need you any leeks or onions? Here's the primest cauliflower, though I say it, in all Badajoz. Set it up at a distance of some ten yards, and I'll forfeit my ass if it does not look bigger than the Alcayde's wig. Or would these radishes suit your turn? There's nothing like radishes for cooling the blood and purging distempered humors.

APOLLODORUS.

I do admire thy vegetables much,But will not buy them. Pray you, pardon meFor one short word of friendly obloquy.Is't possible a being so endowedWith music, song, and sun-aspiring thoughts,Can stoop to chaffer idly in the streets,And, for a huckster's miserable gain,Renounce the urgings of his destiny?Why, man, thine ass should be a Pegasus,A sun-reared charger snorting at the stars,And scattering all the Pleiads at his heels—Thy cart should be an orient-tinted car,Such as Aurora drives into the day,What time the rosy-fingered Hours awake—Thy reins—

SANCHO.

Lookye, master, I've dusted a better jacket than yours before now, so you had best keep a civil tongue in your head. Once for all, will you buy my radishes?

APOLLODORUS.

No!

SANCHO.

Then go to the devil and shake yourself!

[Exit.

APOLLODORUS.

The foul fiend seize thee and thy cauliflowers!I was indeed a most egregious assTo take this lubber clodpole for a bard,and worship that dull fool. Pythian Apollo!Hear me—O hear! Towards the firmamentI gaze with longing eyes; and, in the nameOf millions thirsting for poetic draughts,I do beseech thee, send a poet down!Let him descend, e'en as a meteor falls,Rushing at noonday—